Ladies, Gentlemen and those of you supporting Team Ben, the time has come around again for you to pop to WHSmith’s and buy a diary just so you can colour in December 20th and 21st. You’re booked.

Yup, that’s right! The 5th Annual Wilder Winter Games is here. After last year’s games provided the WWG’s first ever winner, this year is set to be a competition of such ferocity, even the Honey Badger would need counselling!

With the sporting events still yet to be finalised, neither team has been touted as the bookies favorite. Rumours have started to surface of archery though.

To fully support your team, clear out your Christmas savings and treat yourself to the upcoming “Commemorative Tea Towel”. An item of such beauty that even Mother Wilder refuses to take it out of the cellophane wrapping.

That only now leaves us to chuck in some more coal, stoke the furnace and fire up the smack-talk.

After 3 years of stalemate, the 2012 Wilder Winter Games saw Team Ben finally wrestle victory from the grips of Captain Retardo (Team Simons captain).

You can imagine the jubilation! The 2012 winners celebrations lasted 8 days with Team Ben partying so hard, even London’s heavyweights couldn’t keep up.

Kate Moss thew a party for them in her North London mansion, but even she couldn’t take the pace, snapped by paparazzi at 5 am, stuck halfway through her cat-flap shouting “I can’t feel my face”.

The celebratory London Tour culminated in a visit to No 10 Downing street to meet the PM who, after the Wilder Winter Games overshadowed the Olympics, wanted to talk about sponsorship. Sadly the visit was cut short as Team Bens captain, still somewhat in party-mode performed an “upper decker” in the master bedroom ensuite, and was swiftly ejected.

The 2012 Wilder Winter Games saw the arrival of the “Maggie Grey Cup”, a fantastic silver trophy, kindly provided by Maggie Grey, a close friend of mother Wilder, and a keen Wilder Winter Games supporter. This cup is awarded to the winner of each years games, and is engraved with the winning teams name each year. Photos are currently unavailable as the loss of the games is still too real for Team Simons captain.

Day 2 of the 2012 games was an early start for Clay pigeon shooting. Team Ben arrived in flak jackets just in case Team Simon was out for early revenge after the previous days Table Tennis.

Luton Hoo Golf and Spa hotel played host to the Wilders this year, a fantastic setting – and with indoor toilets, suprising this far out of London.

After a cup of tea, everyone received 2 hours of superb 1 on 1 tuition, shooting different types of traps. Air traffic from Luton had been swiftly diverted after a Team Simons captain was told that he was “both eye dominant”, went cross eyed and let loose at a Ryan Air jet on final approach.

Both Antonia and Sammi looked very handy with a shotgun – noted by both Wilders boys, and Mother wilder had a pretty good aim too. I doubt the parents will have a pigeon problem at home for much longer…

After tuition the game was set, each competitor was to attempt to shoot 6 pairs – each pair being lauched simultaneously, one flying away from you and one towards.

Flipping a coin, Team Simons captain won the toss and elected Team Bens captain to take up the challenge.

Simon however gave Ben a serious scare, holiding his nerve until the last clays – only missing an 11 out of 12 due to a Great Tit performing a fly-by.

Shot as below:

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Sammi and Antonia flipped for the second round, Sammi putting Antonia into shoot first.

Antonia didn’t blink for a second as she dispatched just about every clay sent skywards. The instructor was seriously impressed. Ben was seriously scared. Team Simon was seriously worried.

Shot as below:

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Sammi shot incredibly well but with her team captain sobbing in the shooting lodge and Antonias display of markswomanship, she just fell short.

Shot as below:

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Mother wilder had a great eye for the clays buy i dont think she’ll be bagging any game birds soon, they’d likely take flight as soon as her excited whooping starts. She also spent most of her time high-fiving the instructor and adjusting her ear defenders…

Shot as below:

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So that’s another day wrapped up and luckily another win for Team Ben:

The WWG 2012 has started. With Golf delayed to another day due to a combination of rain, work commitments and a miss-firing sphincter, the competitors headed to the Olympic venue of “Brentford Fountain Leisure Center” for the Table Tennis match.

This was to be a round between the two team captains. Team Simons captain quickly asserted his presence by removing his jogging bottoms to expose a very skimpy pair of gym shorts, and then proceeded to perform a number of lunges in front of the opposition. Team Bens captain was however unfazed by this display and calmly donned his lucky table tennis headband and ordered his assistant (mother Wilder) to fetch him some water, then warmed up by shouting and repeatedly punching the leisures centers breeze block walls.

The spartan facilities at the olympic venue meant that the competitors had to assemble the table tennis table themselves, a task of such mental agility that Team Simons captain had to have a bit of a sit down.

Construction complete, warm up done and the smack talk simmering down – the game began. Team Bens captain got of to a flying start taking the first game 21 – 6, with most of Team Simons returns aimed at inflicting lasting personal damage rather than denting the scoreboard. Team Simons captains wayward shots increased as his frustration grew – the shots dealt by Team Bens masterful contender imparted so much spin that most of them had to be returned facing the opposite direction and required the kind of split second ballistic calculations that would make even an astro-physicist load his trousers.

Team Simons captain fought back valiantly in the second game but still could not stop this sporting behemoth, losing 21 -11 and then finally bowed out 21 -15.

Team Ben is feeling pretty confident, but is rather worried about facing a riled Team Simon armed with shotguns and crossbows on day two. If you dont hear from me after tomorrow, please refer the Police to this entry.

Firstly a big thankyou to Lord Coe for sorting out the pre-WilderGames sporting entertainment. I suppose it was ok.

Anyway, moving on to the main event, we are happy to announce that the Wilder Winter Games: 2012 Edition will be held on the 20th – 21st December. The sporting disciplines are yet to be announced, but for the first time in sporting history there will be an odd number of events, resulting in, for the first time EVER…. A WILDER WINTER GAMES WINNER! Trophy included!*

The teams have been assembled and the smack-talk is firing up. Unfortunately due to the lacking intellect of the senior Wilder brother, smack-talk is limited to face-pulling and gesturing.

All Star Lanes was the venue for the final WWG 2011 showdown.
With Team Simon somehow managing to secure a 2 – 1 lead with a win at GoKarting, Team Ben was up against the wall. They needed a win to restore team morale, and to level the series.
The blood tests that Ben had ordered Simon take after the squash, had yet to come back from the lab. With the chance of the Anti-Doping committee finding him in breach of rules looking less and less likely, Team Ben attempted overfeeding the opposition to gain a competetive edge.

Simons labrador like appetite worked against him as he ploughed through a burger, chips and numerous beers.
The meat sweats kicked in and Team Simons captain looked completely incapacitated. Game on. The physical gamesmanship was compounded by Team Bens captains psychological assault via the electronic scoring system, pictured here.
With only a single game of bowling to decide the outcome, the atmosphere was incredibly tense. Sammi from Team Simon scored well with two strikes, Simon and Ben both carding a strike each and a number of spares. Antonia from Team Ben bowled well with her patented Shuffle-Shuffle-backspin technique paying dividends with a good strike and consistent scoring. Ann Wilder from Team Simon, when she wasn’t whooping and squealing, managed to keep most of her balls out of the gutter. Andrew Wilder from Team Ben seemed to be playing “how long can i keep the heavy ball airborne” but it seemed to have the desired effect producing a number of spares, alot of frustration at near strikes, and ultimately a high scoring game.
Emotions ran high, with shouts of “Gutterball!”, “Dont’ choke mate!” and “Wrong lane!”. At halfway through the game, it was anybody’s. The rivalry between the two team captains had reached its peak, they had to be kept to opposite sides of lane as things started to get physical.
The final ball bowled, Team Ben had it in the bag – a fine game of bowling (284 to 252). The taunting began almost immediately. The Team Simon captain was restrained by members of both teams after he tried to insert one of the bowling balls into the winning teams captain.

Yet again, a draw at the Wilder Winter Games. Maybe next year we will have the common sense to field an odd number of games, but maybe we won’t.Totals

Arriving at Revolution Karting at 10 am, in the snow. Team Ben and Team Simon flipped a coin for choice of parent. Team Ben scores mother, whilst Team Simon scores father. If they manage to get Father Wilder into the bucket seat – he might be pretty hot!

A good 30 minutes of racing in the wet produced some hilarious spins from everyone, except from Mother Wilder, whose top speed of 4 mph prevented any sort of misshap.

Racing was really tight, with the tail enders attempting to hold up the other team by side swiping, indicating with their hands and strategically embedding themselves in the tirewalls at the apex of crucial turns.

Team Ben were looking good in the first session but failed to make a dent in the second, blaming faulty fuel mix. Team Simon, pointing out that the Karts were electric made no such excuses and squeezed a good win with the following average fastest laps:

Last year, something happened. It was wrong and shouldn’t have occured at all. The power-balance on the squash court had shifted irreparably in the Wilder family. Planetary alignment and the resulting weather patterns were affected, leading to low crop harvest for the rest of the year. Something had to be done…

Ben, still high from his morning’s success on the golf course, was smug as ever and keen to prove last year’s squash triumph was not a fluke. With a full viewing gallery the game got underway after a brief warmup. What happened next can only be described as “humiliating”.

No sooner had the brothers taken to the court, it felt as if they were leaving again. Suffice to say, the 9-5, 9-3, 9-2 scoreline in Simon’s favour tells the story all too well. Ben’s vitory of 2010 on the court will go down in history as a blip, nothing more.

So the first day came to a close with yet another draw. Eagerly awaiting the challenge of the new sporting additions, the Wilder Family decided to dine on an athelete’s dinner at Pizza Express. Bring on Friday!

Back again for another year of sibling rivalry, the Wilder Games: Winter Edition 2011 has begun.

Starting at the frosty time of 09:04, we teed off with great excitement. Simon winning the toss decided to let Ben humiliate himself first but was not so amused when it came to his turn and found himself reaching for the sand-wedge all too early. Finishing the first hole 5-7 in favour of Ben, the older and more senile of the brothers was getting cocky very quickly.

Not content with his foray into the sand on the first, Simon promptly fired the 3rd hole Tee shot into the school over the back of the green. All running smoothly then.

With Ben sensing that Simon’s game was a little squiffy, he was playing safe and adding to his lead on most holes despite claiming that each hole we reached was his “nemesis”. Lying bastard.

Simon continued to explore the parts of the course that are there for scenic effect, losing a total of 3 balls. This is an achievement in itself!

So going onto the final hole with a lead of 7, Ben was rightly smug and confident. This however grew as Simon found the corner of the lake with masterful accuracy. Ben took the hole 4-6 securing the first win of 2011, and taking the Golf trophy back to its original home.

The premier sporting event of the year is here! Each year Ben and Simon Wilder take a day off work during the winter months to challenge each other at a number of sports. This year sees a change to the format, with a second day being added – sports chosen by each competitor, and the participation of parents and girlfriends.

The first day format remains unchanged with the Wilder brothers battling it out over a game of golf followed by an afternoon of squash. They will then probably attempt to drink each other into oblivion to throw them off the following days games, GoKarting in the morning and Ten Pin Bowling in the afternoon – both these also competed in by parents and girlfriends.

This year also sees the introduction of official Wilder Winter Games Polo Shirts, complete with family coat of arms and lettering on the back.